If You See Me, Then Weep.

“If You See Me, Then Weep.”
An ancient German inscription appears on a stone in the Elbe River on the Czech-German border upon the receding of waters to alarming levels. As Europe witnesses a devastating drought, the worst in 500 years, the rivers’ receding waters reveal long-hidden engraved inscriptions, called the “hunger stones”, sending ominous warnings from past generations to those to come. And here they came.
“When this goes under, life will flourish again”, says another inscription. But will life really flourish this time? The latest report from the Global Drought Observatory states that 47% of Europe is under warning conditions, with an apparent deficit of soil moisture, and 17% is in a state of alert. In the United States, water levels of Lake Mead in Arizona stood at their lowest, filling just 27% of capacity, and the drought hit surrounding areas, causing lands to become barren.
That is to state a few examples of so many.
And there it is: the environmental disaster hits nations that call themselves “First World Countries”. Perhaps the time has come for them to revisit the Paris Climate Agreement and commit to implementing it! There are no palpable indications of such endeavors yet. Quite the opposite actually, some countries, in light of the conflict with Russia, are returning to using coal as a source of energy production!

We now live in an era of climate change that threatens life on the planet. The indications are almost countless, but let us state the wildfires in Greece, Spain, Lebanon, Syria, Algeria, and other countries across the globe. Some forests are burning due to global warming and drought. Still, in Brazil, for example, the Amazon forest is being intentionally burned to provide vast terrains to grow soy, the staple food needed for meat production. That meat is, of course, only accessible to a privileged few who can afford the staggering cost of production (materially and environmentally). At the same time, 829 million people sleep on empty stomachs. Some die because they cannot find anything to eat, not wheat, not soy, or any other grain. In comparison, a third of the world’s food production goes to mountains of accumulated waste (34 million people in 38 countries will die of starvation should they not receive immediate assistance).

Many phenomena warn of disaster: rising temperatures and melting ice at the poles, the new gigantic hole in the ozone layer over the tropics, seven times larger than the one we know in the Antarctic, and the atrophy of coral reefs, which produce oxygen and serve as a home to a quarter of living organisms (14% of them have died and 99% of the rest face expiration). Oceans and seas are suffocating with plastic, 27 thousand species of living creatures are extinct every year, and 80% of insect species have disappeared due to floods, hurricanes, and other destructive phenomena.

The list of all that threatens life under the sun is endless. Still, a severe issue remains worth mentioning, a phenomenon that public opinion remains unaware of, the desertification and expiration of arable soil.

To date, the planet has lost 52% of its food-producing soils, and 20 years from now, food production will decline by 40%. The Earth’s population will reach 9.3 billion people, knowing that the level of nutrients in fruits and vegetables produced by humans today has decreased by 90% due to the lack of soil and organic materials in most agricultural lands. In addition, the soil’s lack of these materials makes it unable to absorb and store water, which causes waste and provokes drought and floods (the last of which killed a thousand people in Pakistan and destroyed more than a million homes).

Our planet is caught in a self-regenerating amplifying whirlpool. Soils rich in organic matter store massive amounts of carbon, and their atrophy releases 850 billion tons of it into the Earth’s atmosphere, twice the carbon present today and three times more than that stored in living plants. That exceeds all the carbon produced by human activity for the past 30 years!

The reality is tragic. Is any mind able to imagine life on earth after that? Wars have caused the displacement of millions of people, and the expiration of the soil and its transformation into sand will cause the displacement of more than one billion people by the year 2050. Just imagine the scene. How many boats will sink or be intentionally sunk? Who will count the dead bodies floating in the seas? Who will gaze into the eyes of the hungered wandering migrants to determine their color? Races and colors will combine. Death remains one.

The reality is tragic. We are not displaying a pessimistic picture; it is merely the bitter truth we are stating. We realize that in our Arab region torn by wars, poverty, tyranny, and occupation, we may not have the luxury of entertaining the environmental disaster, but the danger is imminent. We will keep fighting for the sake of generations to come and for the identity that we believe can effectively preserve life as one integrated unit and protect the human being who “enfolds the entire Universe within”. Our struggle for survival as a cultural identity that produces intellect, literature, art, and knowledge goes hand in hand with our responsibility toward humanity. We have a duty to honor here, and we will not abandon our role as a society with its epistemological vision that can contribute to reshaping the ruling systems on the planet. Climate change is a major global human issue, and if the ruling few have tailored systems run by greed and disregard for the fate of future generations, we adopt a different mentality that drastically opposes the globalization of savagery.

It is not too late to build a more just world (on all levels, the ecological one is overwhelming), and justice here is not only meant between human beings but unites all forms of creation.

We are doing our best as an organization in the film industry. For all the reasons mentioned above, we have contributed to the production of the Green Guide, which instructs filmmakers on ways to reduce the production of carbon, plastic, and other pollutants. Our industry produces large amounts of greenhouse gases. Each typical one-hour television episode emits 13.5 tons of carbon dioxide, each series of television dramas filmed in a studio produces 54 tons per hour, and each television show filmed in a studio produces 3 tons of it. Every standard filming set, film or television, makes up to 800 pounds (363 kg) of waste per day, knowing that 80% of this waste is recyclable or compostable.
In addition to the Green Guide, we contribute to the REEF – Rural Encounters on Environment and Film festival organization in the northern Lebanese countryside, Kobayat, Akkar, in partnership with the Council of Environment. This edition of the festival is entitled “REEF, Zero Waste” and presents local and international films focusing on the theme of trees, in addition to many environmental awareness activities.

As cultural and creative activists, we will not ignore the environmental disaster threatening all life forms. We will not abandon our role as a society in protecting life everywhere and anywhere. What we leave behind will not be lifeless extents of barren sand.
“If you see me, then weep,” says the stone.

We came, we saw…